


The Wonder of Devotion

by MagiKatFish



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Quote: Family Don't End With Blood (Supernatural), Reunions, Season/Series 15, Season/Series 15 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagiKatFish/pseuds/MagiKatFish
Summary: Dean dies, goes to Heaven, reunites with his family, and fixes one last thing that needs fixing."Happiness… It ain’t in the cards for me, Cas. At least, not without you.”(A.k.a. another (mostly) canon compliant fix-it to the finale that really just needed to be done.)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	The Wonder of Devotion

**Author's Note:**

> So this finale destroyed me and despite my eternal, continuing lack of energy and self-confidence in my writing I fell into a trance and didn't emerge until this fic was complete. 
> 
> In all honesty I can go 50/50 for/against Dean dying but for the sake of this fic specifically I went along with it and tried my best to write it in a way that I feel like gives Dean some peace. I also have a fix-it idea version where Dean doesn't get backstabbed literally and metaphorically by the writers but I wrote this one first because it just came to me easiest. 
> 
> This is not beta'd, but I hope you enjoy it!

Dean is terrified to die.

It’s hard to grasp, when he first realizes that. When the metal pierces through his back there’s a moment where his mind whites out, and everything’s strangely blank. There’s a moment where he hovers, where time itself floats and his body can’t possibly be his own, and all those feelings of _bad_ and _wrong_ evaporate before him like the last seconds of a hazy dream. 

And when awareness finally slams back into him, it slams into him hard.

It’s not even like he hasn’t died before. There have been countless times over the years, as he’d played games with the reapers or damned himself to eternal Hell. All of those times had hurt. In his head he’d always drowned it out with a single thought: _this is all for Sam._ To win, to save the day, to protect his baby brother, he’d always been ready to step forward, to swallow the fear and take the pain and die. He’d learned to think that death was just a step, a path to the bigger goal, a means for the big win. 

But of course, those times, he’d always come back. His family needed him, Sam needed him, the world itself needed him. There was still _work_ for him to do, fresh out of the grave with dirt still behind his ears, facing down the great unknowns with a knife and a battered old journal and some precious thing to protect, no matter the cost.

This time it’s different.

This time the stillness lingers, and he sees the end for himself and he’s _afraid._ He’s seen Heaven and Hell and every God-forsaken place in-between—has _been_ to most of them—and he’s still afraid. 

His death has always, until this point, been secondary. Every death before had been entangled with family, with duty, with saving people and hunting things and a heart beating until its last desperate breath: _Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…_

This time the kids are safe, the monsters are dead, the world is still turning, and Dean… Dean doesn’t think there’s any work on earth left for him to do. 

Dean knows that maybe Sam will think it’s selfish. That only hours ago he was eating a slice of damn well-deserved pie and telling his little brother to live on, to hold the pain and fold it away and honor their family’s sacrifice the way it was always meant to be. But Dean’s known for a while now, that the sacrifices made because of him— _for_ him—have all been for that one thing that nobody and nothing have ever been able to give him.

All these years of sacrifice, all for a real, lasting peace.

And Dean wants to rest.

So Sam will think he’s being selfish, but here in this empty barn he’s a nobody and a nothing and the memory of a voice ringing in his ears telling him he has _work_ to do makes him laugh because in the end those words couldn’t have been more true, and he thinks he’s never worked so damn hard in all his life. God commanded it and damn if he didn’t get exactly that. 

Maybe it’s not the best thought-out retirement plan, but… well, he’s making it up as he goes along. 

They all have.

And this time, he’s okay with that. 

Now Sam is begging him to stay and Dean can barely twist his mouth to speak but he thinks, _this time… this time it’s all for me._

And he’s still scared.

He knows what he wants, he knows where he’s going and how he’ll get there. He’s okay with it, but his heart beats out a slow rhythm, _Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,_ and his brother is crying in front of him, terrified to be alone, and Dean just wishes he could _know._ There’s no air in his lungs for all the things he wants his baby brother to know, no way the words could ever grasp the aching, or the loving, or the peace. But he tries to tell him anyways, tries however he can to let him know that this, all of this, is going to be okay. 

He tries to hear it back too. He wants them to be on the same page for once. No more lies, no more distance between them. Just brothers, the two of them, side-by-side until the bitter end. 

Dean’s making another decision that will change their lives and he needs to know, needs to hear the words from Sam himself. _Wants,_ above all, for everything to be okay.

Then he fades away.

And incredibly, it is. 

***

Heaven is different. 

When he first arrives, he wonders what the limitless white walls and the winged dicks who have tried to ruin him for years will consider to be his greatest hits, his most precious memories. He thinks it’s hilarious how some of those memories must involve defying the will of Heaven itself. He likes the irony of it, prepared to cling to it through the eternity of monotonous, bottled-up joys they must be lining up to show him. 

But then he’s in a forest, by a long since demolished Roadhouse, with the sunlight streaming in from overhead, and Bobby is right there waiting for him.

Heaven, it seems, has changed.

When Bobby tells him about it, Dean smiles. It’s _been_ changed, more like, by a boy who loves sugary cereal a bit too much and an angel who had to be taught how to brush his teeth.

Everyone’s here. The list of names, all the faces of the family he’s had to bury over the years—Bobby tells him about each of them, ever the linchpin in this sprawling network Dean’s somehow found himself in the middle of. His mom and his dad are just a stone’s throw away, and Dean thinks about the last family meal they had, all those decades of what-ifs put to rest at last. 

“What are you going to do next?” Bobby asks him, and Dean hears, _Who are you going to go see?_

Instead Dean decides, “I’m going for a drive.”

He has an eternity to spare, after all. 

Stepping into Baby and hearing her engine purr, Dean’s reminded of that day that feels like forever ago now, when he’d taught Jack how to drive. Riding passenger, watching Jack open her up on the sun-worn road, and realizing he’d already long since fallen into something so much bigger than himself. 

He had to have been blind to have missed it before, but behind the wheel now he thinks he finally knows where he’s been trying to go.

The music plays, and Dean drives.

***

Time doesn’t exist in Heaven the same way it does on Earth. 

Dean’s been on the road for hours, winding his way through the woods that stretch out however long he needs. Years could’ve passed, or only a few seconds, and Dean lives somewhere in between. All he knows is that his favorite cassette tape hasn’t stopped playing yet, and he’s had more than enough time to think.

He pulls over on the empty road and steps out of the car into a sea of falling autumn leaves. A bird sings in the distance and the bushes shake from a bolting deer. Dean thinks that in the summer there will be plenty of flowers, and the quiet hum of countless honeybees. 

He takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes.

“You really did a number on this place, huh?” he says, and huffs on a laugh. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were rolling out the red carpet for me.”

The wind rustles and kicks up a small swirl of red and orange leaves. It’s cold, but nice.

Dean scratches the back of his neck and adds, “Still missing a couple things though.”

The wind shifts and the leaves scatter beneath his feet. Something heavy flaps behind him and despite all his careful hours thinking his throat still closes up, choking itself on a burning swell of hope and grief and _need._

“Hello, Dean.”

The feeling screams through his veins as Dean turns to see Cas standing there, looking just the same as every time before. He’s smiling with that unfathomable little upturn of his lips, hands hanging quietly by his sides, blue eyes alight and alive and focused entirely on Dean. 

There were words for this moment, Dean was sure that he’d thought of some, but in that moment he could only stumble forward and gasp out a single word, “Cas—” before he was closing the distance between them and pulling the angel into a tight, frantic hug.

“Cas—” he tries again, as his hands scramble for purchase tight enough and his fingers dig into the material of the heavy trench coat. All at once he was seeing Cas in smithereens, sliding down into the lake, burnt, broken wings laid out against the earth, eyes shining with tears being enveloped by darkness—if possible Dean grasped harder, clawed against the physical proof just beneath his hands, breathed again, “Cas.”

Then a body moving against his, warm arms sliding up his back to hold him in return, fingers digging hard into his skin. A rumble near his ear, “Dean,” and a quiet crack in composure. Dean feels it as his whole body shakes. The two of them seem to sink into each other, heavy and real and there, never wanting to let go again. 

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas says, and Dean can hear how his voice wobbles on the words. Dean just shakes his head and pulls him in closer.

“I’m sorry,” Cas whispers, as Dean’s eyes burn. “I’m so sorry.”

Dean pulls away then, forced to release his paralyzed grip, so he can find the strength to choke out a quiet but gruff, “Stop, Cas, please.” He doesn’t think he can stand to listen to this.

Cas draws back as far as he can with Dean still clutching to one of his coat sleeves, and Dean can see the broken, jagged pieces of himself reflected back in those endless blue eyes. Dean growls at his own tears and continues, slightly firmer, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“You’re dead,” Cas says, dropping his eyes to Dean’s hand, to his whitened-knuckle grip. “I couldn’t—”

“C’mon, Cas,” Dean sighs, as the angel frowns and presses his lips together. 

“You were supposed to live,” Cas says instead. “You _deserved_ to live.”

“No more than anybody else,” Dean replies firmly.

Cas’s gaze snaps back up to his, his blue eyes flashing. “I _wanted_ you to live,” he snaps back, “I wanted you to have a life, to be happy—and with Sam, after everything, and now—”

“Cas, please. Sammy’ll be just fine without me.”

This, of all things, gives Cas pause. Something of his frenetic energy fades as he stares at Dean, takes in the slope of his shoulders and his embarrassingly red-stained face. He’s not sure what about that seems to broadcast some grain of revelation to the angel, but then stillness settles in the air and some of the wild tension seems to seep out of them both.

Dean smiles, and Cas stares at him in undisguised wonder.

“It’ll be okay, angel,” he says, and Cas doesn’t say a word.

Dean hooks a thumb behind him and gestures with a glance. “Drive with me?”

And Cas blinks. “Of course, Dean.”

***

Dean switches the tape in the car as they drive back to the Roadhouse. Cas sits in the passenger seat next to him, content enough to lean back in his seat and watch the passing road. When he hears the first chords, he turns to glance at Dean.

“The Rain Song,” he says, his gaze locked on Dean’s profile.

Dean shrugs. “One of my favorites.”

Cas hums. After a beat, he turns away again, and replies quietly, “It’s one of mine too.”

***

The party at the Roadhouse is one Dean hasn’t seen for a long, long time.

Ellen is there the moment he walks through the door, and she strides right up to him and smacks him across the back of the head.

“Don’t think we don’t know what you’ve been up to, boy,” she scolds him, before pulling him in for a bone-crushing hug. “It’s good to see you.”

Jo smacks him across the back of the head too, and laughs as she does it. “It just looked like fun,” she smirks, and saunters away.

Dean pulls a face, and Bobby just rolls his eyes at him.

Missouri claims to just be stopping by, and she gives him a hug and a soft pat on the cheek. Pamela gives him a wink and hands him a drink. Rufus hands him another, a short while later, and he spots his parents at the other end of the bar, talking quietly between each other. He thinks he’ll visit their place properly another time.

Ash is orchestrating a tipsy game of pool and Dean beats him handily, and a hand tapping him on the shoulder has him turning to come face to face with Kevin, who challenges him to another game.

Dean tears up, and reminds himself to send up a prayer thanking Jack for another miracle.

He finally sobs outright when he finds Charlie. To her credit she’s only a little surprised, before she opens her arms and teases, just a bit too gently, “Come here you big baby.”

He spends a long time catching up with her after that. She listens quietly, reacts with appropriate disbelief or shock at all the right parts—laughs uncontrollably at the idea of her alternate universe self, jokes that she always knew her innate lesbianism transcended universal boundaries—and finally sighs when Dean falls silent at the end of his story, his beer glass long since empty.

She quirks her lips, a little rueful, and asks, “You’re not done yet, though, are you?”

He doesn’t even need to follow her gaze to know what she’s looking at, and he shakes his head. “With as many second chances as I’ve gotten, I’m just surprised that I’m not.”

“Not every day someone defies the literal machinations of God for you, huh?”

The single breath of a laugh that manages to bubble its way out of him sends his heart racing, and Charlie pats his arm sympathetically. 

“I’m just shocked that emotions weren’t what killed you, in the end,” she says. There’s a beat, and she grimaces. “Too soon?”

Dean laughs properly this time, and pushes himself off the bar so he can stand. 

Ellen takes his empty glass and gestures with a wave of her hand to the staircase behind the bar. “There’s always room for you here, Dean,” she says. “Consider the drinks free for tonight.”

“Thanks Ellen,” he says, overwhelmed by the sincerity that surges into it.

Then he’s heading for the stairs, and he knows without speaking that Cas will follow him up. And sure enough, he doesn’t even hit the first landing before a voice behind him says, “I had almost forgotten Jo’s strange fascination with seeing me inebriated.”

Dean chuckles. “People don’t usually drink her under the table and live to get away with it.”

There’s a guest room on the second floor that Dean leads them to, and inside the bed is already made with crisp, clean sheets. Cas steps in and closes the door quietly behind him, and then it’s just the two of them, muffled voices from downstairs only barely funneling through.

“Dean—”

“Cas, look—”

They both fall silent again, and Dean’s hands clench where they rest at his side.

“Cas, listen,” he tries again, and Cas fixes his gaze on him, remaining otherwise still. It all feels so ridiculous. “About—about before, when Billie…”

Dean frowns, and Cas’s face softens as he steps a little closer into the room. “You don’t have to say anything, Dean. I understand.”

“No,” Dean cuts in, a little too rough, a little too quick. He clears his throat and tries again, “No, I—I don’t—I _want_ to say it, all right? And I want you to _listen_ to me.”

Cas’s expression shutters slightly, but he nods anyways. 

Dean sighs. Cas is here, right in front of him, but when he closes his eyes he still sees tear-stained blue eyes, still hears the fizzling, raging bangs of a crumbling sigil, still feels the fear, pain, misery, hatred, _hopelessness,_ echoing in the too-silent aftermath of the empty Bunker. The fear had choked him then, had wrapped around his throat and his heart and squeezed until it felt like he couldn’t breathe. But here, now, he doesn’t want to be that version of himself ever again. 

He’s changed.

“What you said, before you—when Billie was after us,” he says, “You were wrong.”

“Dean—”

“About being happy,” Dean forces out before Cas can protest further, “You were wrong.”

“After you were gone, I couldn’t stop thinking about that. About what you said, about what you could have meant. I didn’t understand how you could stand there and say—say you were happy like that.”

Cas shifts his gaze to the floor, and Dean’s struck with such a powerful wave of nostalgia that it carries him forward before he can even think to stop himself. His fingers find their way into the lapel of Cas’s coat, and he rests his fist near Cas’s shoulder. He waits until Cas looks back up at him before he continues.

“I’ve spent all of my life wanting things I couldn’t have, Cas. My mom, a normal dad, a normal family… a better life, maybe. Someone who could understand me, and what I do. And every time we saved a life, stopped a bad guy—saved the freakin’ planet, hell, more than once—I thought I could be happy with that. But I really, _really_ wasn’t.”

Cas’s eyes search his face, and one of his hands comes up to rest against Dean’s elbow. The touch steadies him.

“I didn’t understand how you could be okay with something like that,” Dean carries on. “How you could _die_ for something like that. How could you be happy, thinking you had nothing?”

Dean’s voice breaks at last on that one single question, and Cas’s hand slips from his elbow to hold the fist still clenched tightly in his clothes. His thumb strokes over Dean’s knuckles, and Dean grips him tighter in response.

“I don’t regret what I did Dean,” Cas says quietly. “And I meant every word. I don’t need more than that.”

“Don’t you get it?” Dean’s voice shakes. “You deserve _more_ than that.”

Cas’s thumb pauses against Dean’s skin.

“You said you wanted me to be happy, but man, happiness… It ain’t in the cards for me, Cas. At least, not without you.”

This close, Dean can hear the sharp intake of breath from Cas’s lips.

“I kept wondering how you couldn’t know. I’ve always wanted you. And it killed me, every time I thought I had you, only to lose you, over and over again. I can’t—It just wasn’t the same without you. I wasn’t the same without you, and everyone—I think everyone knew it but you.”

Dean laughs, feeling once again the heavy burn of tears. Cas’s eyes are wet too, and Dean relaxes his grip so he can bring both hands up, to swipe his thumbs under Cas’s eyes, across his cheeks. 

“I needed you,” he admits. “I still do. From the moment we met, you’ve changed me too. You _saved_ me, Cas, from Heaven and Hell and Death itself. And then you went and saved me from myself.”

Cas looks stunned. Dean leans in and his eyes are blown wide. There’s an energy humming in the room like bottled lightning, as Dean traces a path closer to Cas’s parted lips. 

“You can have this, Cas,” Dean tells him. “You can have me.”

Then they kiss, and Dean feels lit up from the inside, like a live wire. His hands cradle Cas’s face, and slide back to run through his hair. Cas’s hands come to rest on his hips, squeezing just tight enough to bruise as he pulls Dean closer and opens himself up to him. It’s desperate—they both are, aching to hold each other, to touch each other, to have each other at last—but the kiss is something fragile and warm, something still unbelievably tender. 

When they pull away it’s not more than a couple inches between them, still close enough to share the air but far enough away that Dean can see the smile that lights up Cas’s face. The way his cheeks ache Dean knows he must be smiling too.

“I love you,” Dean says, and the relief of those words, their sheer weight, is dizzying.

Cas kisses him again.

Then, when he pulls back, he replies, “You saved me too.”

Dean’s exhausted for words, so he simply sinks into the feeling of Cas’s hands on him and closes his eyes.

He thinks, _an angel of the Lord fell in love with me and together we moved Heaven and the Earth and defied God himself._

_And every time he came back to me, I fell in love with him too._

And it doesn’t get much better than that.


End file.
